Small Talk In China

Eve

n with modest expectations, the opening round of multilateral talks on North Korea's nuclear-weapons plans in Beijing last week was less than successful. Diplomats from the U.S., North Korea, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan left the six-sided bargaining table — custom-built for the talks — with no real progress.

On Friday, North Korea's official news agency dismissed the negotiations as "a stage show to force us to disarm." Worse still, the next day, contradicting an earlier statement by the Chinese, North Korea announced that it saw no point in returning to the table.

As always, it is unclear whether the North is bluffing. But Pyongyang's delegates to the talks had never been in a convivial mood. According to an American diplomat at the sessions, North Korea's representative, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Yong Il, privately told the U.S.'s top negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, that the U.S. had left the North no choice but to declare itself a nuclear power — and that Pyongyang would soon conduct a nuclear test. The next day Kelly recounted what he had been told. As China's envoy, Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, grew visibly ruffled, Kim was obliged to repeat his threats.

Ideally, Beijing would like to maintain the status quo: a weak but relatively stable North Korea not openly engaged in building a nuclear arsenal. Says Chu Shulong, a political scientist at Tsinghua University in Beijing: "China is more concerned about a crisis spinning out of control." Few anywhere want that; but it would be no surprise if Bush Administration hawks, who have long wanted to step up pressure on Pyongyang, now saw little reason to extend their patience. "The North Koreans have run this particular film on too many Saturday nights," says a Western diplomat. Sounds like someone's getting tired of the show.